Tag: negativity

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You Have to Protect Your Space

September 20, 2021 jcladyluv

I am extremely careful about who I let into my space these days. I have gone from being a person with a wide circle of friends and associates to a person who just has a few select friends that I interact with, and they are people who understand that my space is precious to me and that the energy in my space can’t be negative. But then there are family members that can’t exactly be ignored or discarded because, well, they’re family.

It’s not easy to ignore negative criticism or when people talk down to you about your dreams or the things that you are working towards. It’s particularly hard when it comes from unexpected places like your family. This past weekend a family member made sure that they sent me a text message first thing in the morning to convey how sad they were that it didn’t seem like people were buying my book and that it didn’t look like I was getting any support from even my fellow authors on my Ko-fi page. They proceeded to tell me ways that I could bring more attention to my book and my site in general.

Mind you this person is not experienced in marketing (for the record nether am I), they have no idea what I have sold or haven’t sold book wise, and this person also refused to promote my book at all in the lead up to its release. Now I am okay with their lack of support even though they are family and to be fair they have contributed to my Ko-fi page (which is how they know I’m not getting enough support—at least in their eyes) but that doesn’t give them the right to try to poison my day. This person is the kind of person that somehow sees negative comments and unsolicited negative advice as them being helpful. They see negativity as a tool to toughen someone up and light the proverbial fire under them.

Now I have come a long way in learning how to ignore the negative self-talk that I have in my own mind and to put a positive spin on nearly everything because honestly it doesn’t help me to see the negative points about what I’m working towards. I know that there are some people that it works for but I am not one of those people. As a person who has suffered with many bouts of deep depression and still struggles not to let myself get to that place again, I don’t need someone pointing out every negative thing they can think of. Trust me, I have probably already said it to myself anyway.

Now this person also clearly has not researched the statistical data behind the fact the most authors do not sell a ton of books with their first book, maybe not even their second or third (hell Dan Brown said no one even paid attention to him until his fourth book) and I knew that going in and have had that fact in my mind. I don’t write or publish books to try and get rich (not that I would mind it lol). I write and publish because I love it, always have since I was ten years old (really six) and because I have things to say that I feel are important enough that someone else might actually want to read it and might even get something out of it.

This family member seems to always, when I’m at my most peaceful state, want to drop their words of negativity in my lap and just thinks I’m supposed to thank them for it. They don’t respect my space and they don’t seem to understand or care that the negative comments are not just hurtful and destructive, but they’re just unnecessary. I’m not going to deny that I got in my feelings about this message that morning for about an hour or two but then I let it go. I proceeded to ignore any further messages and didn’t respond to the one’s that were sent and I went back to protecting my space.

We all have different ideas of what our happy place is. That place of peace where even if the world starts to crumble (or feels like it anyway) you still are armed with the knowledge and self-assurance that everything will be okay. It’s that space where I know that God would never give me more than I can handle and if I’m not strong enough he will be there to provide me with the strength that I need. We have to protect our spaces and keep those who wish to destroy it out, and not to be mean or nasty, but to keep ourselves sane and okay. I hope that you are protecting your space and I wish you well in doing so.

Until next time… #BeProtective #BeMindful #BeMotivated

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

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There Are No Other Options

June 25, 2014 jcladyluv

It’s a sad thing that there are some people in this world who only want to see you fail. They want to see you as someone you’re not so that they can justify wanting you to have nothing and no one. They will see you with a glimpse of something good, whether it be an innocent friendship or a direction for your life that they may not have, and they want to rip it away from you so that they can have the satisfaction of seeing you knocked down. I don’t understand these people. I don’t operate that way and I don’t understand the people that do.

I am not a person who is very open or trusting and it is true that I don’t have a lot of friends but that is because I’ve had a lot in the past and have been burned by so many that I would just rather not go through the trouble. I think that it is a better thing to have one or two really good friends rather than a whole lot of false ones. I am guarded, extremely guarded, but when I do let people in, then I am a very all in type of person no matter what the nature of the relationship, whether it is business, romantic, or just a friendship.

I also don’t share my dreams with just anyone either, because too many people won’t understand it and they will find ways to trivialize it, or to try and rationalize it and there just simply aren’t any. I am getting used to being the target for people, to people always taking my weaknesses and using them against me, to people taking the things I value the most and treasure deeply and basically demolishing them the best way that they can.

I think the more that people try to knock me down and the more times I have to keep pulling myself back up (and I admittedly stay down way longer than I should) the more I realize that I don’t have any other choice than to succeed at what it is that I am striving to do with my business and with my life in general. I am not only motivated by passion for what I want to do in my business but also by the people that desire to see that I never have it.

I refuse to give the people who want to see me down to nothing the satisfaction of seeing me fail. I just can’t let that be an option. So the only other option I have is to succeed. If that means that I have to be a hardened person who everyone abandons then so be it because when I get to where it is that I am going everyone who ever doubted me, who ever ridiculed me, who ever purposely tried to destroy me, and whoever abandoned me when I needed them the most, well they are going to be the ones who wished that they had held on for the ride. I will not give them the satisfaction. Failure is not an option.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

I Hear No Differently

January 15, 2014 jcladyluv

I get so tired of hearing no. For some people, when they hear No they hear a challenge and it stirs within them motivation. That’s what you should hear when people tell you No. But that’s not what I hear.

I hear rejection over and over again. I hear me putting myself out there and putting my heart all in it for nothing. I hear you’re never going to be as good as them so why bother trying. I hear you’re never going to be good enough for anyone. I hear you’re not worthy and you have no value. It wasn’t always that way. I used to get fired up by a no and it instilled a desire to prove people wrong.

However, somewhere along the way it weakened me and certain people’s negative words and opinions of me started to seem like they may have had some merit to them. The negatives began to outweigh the positives and I bought into it. I keep hearing other people’s success stories and how they heard nothing but no’s until finally that one yes happened that impacted their lives forever. I read those stories and I think “where the hell is my yes?”

I’ll admit that the better part of last year I literally just gave up (whew, there I said it). The no’s just bogged me down and sent me into a state of depression and I just didn’t feel like fighting for my dream anymore. I started to fabricate in my mind that the no’s were a sign telling me that this just wasn’t meant for me and maybe I’m not a talented enough writer to really make it. I just wasn’t motivated anymore.

The negatives became more believable than the positives because there were just not enough positives to go on. I kept waiting for something to happen, perhaps a yes would just fall into my lap because I felt like I could no longer just keep putting in my all only to get back nothing. Luckily for me, my love and passion for writing and for seeing all of my dreams come to fruition never died. It remained just as strong as it had ever been, it just got pushed down by all of the negative stuff that I was letting cloud my head.

As I stated in my previous post I have recently come to some realizations about myself and in reevaluating a lot of things, truths that weren’t clear and obvious to me before, I see that the yeses weren’t coming because I never truly believed they would. If I wasn’t going to believe in me how could I expect anyone else to?

Self-evaluation can be really good for you and in my case it kind of woke me up to all of the opportunities that I was missing out on because I didn’t really believe I was good enough to receive them. I was sabotaging myself with my own self-doubt. I’m not saying that I won’t still have my days where the doubt creeps in there. But now that I can see clearer what I was doing to my own dreams I am more aware of what needs to be done to get the yeses that I know I deserve to hear.

Of course there will be more no’s along with way but I have to keep in mind that if I hear a no it’s because God has something better and that it wasn’t for me to begin with. Are your own doubts and fears getting the better of you too? Just keep in mind that every door is not meant for you to open.

Jimmetta Carpenter

My Write 2 Be is…

CEO/Writer/Editor

Write 2 Be Media/Write 2 Be Magazine

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

Beware of the False Negatives

February 21, 2013 jcladyluv

I think that sometimes people, particularly artists, have a hard time trusting ourselves. I’ve noticed that with myself at least. I know I’ve shared with all of you in the past that I constantly second guess myself and then when I decide on something, I rethink it and wonder if I made the right choice. I wonder if I’m good enough. Sometimes I even think that when I have confidence in something that I might be getting too far ahead of myself because maybe, just maybe, I shouldn’t be nearly as confident as I am.

I tend to give advice to others about trusting their gut and doing what they know if right for them and trust that God will not steer them wrong or allow them to get too far off course. I give good advice that I never seem to be able to take myself. I seem to have no problem filling my head with all of these false negatives, I’m not good enough, I’m not smart enough, I’m not strong enough, I didn’t work hard enough, I didn’t try enough, but the odd thing is that deep down inside I know those to be false statements and yet they are so much easier to believe then the truth. Why do we do that?

We tell ourselves the worst, perhaps trying to not allow ourselves to get big headed or to get overly confident or to get our hopes up, but why shouldn’t we be all of those things? Why shouldn’t we be confident and why shouldn’t our hopes be raised? Joel Osteen said something in one of his sermons that stuck with me. He said “you can’t have faith if you don’t first have hope”. We’re always so worried about the other shoe dropping from somewhere out of the sky to make everything around us crumble.

The fact is that so many things can go wrong that we don’t need to add to it by standing by and waiting for what we presume might be the inevitable. Instead of worrying about this invisible shoe from some unknown place and filling our heads with all of these false negatives that we like to tell ourselves about our own abilities, why don’t we just chose to act now. Act on those instincts, don’t second guess, don’t over think, don’t wonder if you’re good enough, don’t question all that might go wrong, just take action.

Think of all of the opportunities you’re walking right pass while you are worrying and waiting for that other shoe that just might never drop. It’s a false expectation that helps to foster all of those false negatives that you have come to rely on to be true. Sometimes the lies we tell ourselves can end up being the death of all of our dreams.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

Write 2 Be Magazine is now out so please go check it out at http://write2bemagazine.com/. Also please go and join the magazine on twitter https://twitter.com/write2bemag, join the email listing for the magazine or submit a request for an author interview at Write2bemagazine@yahoo.com, and also like the Write 2 Be Magazine fan page https://www.facebook.com/Write2BeMagazine. Please help support my endeavor and my new journey and help me spread the word about Write 2 Be and its meaning.

Releasing the Fears That Keep Holding Me Back

January 2, 2013 jcladyluv

Okay so as a part of my drive to make this year much better then the last couple of years, pertaining to my writing career, I suppose it would be helpful to address the things that hold me back from progressing the way I should be. I realized that when I blog the things that I need to improve upon and work harder at that it helps me to hold myself more accountable in making sure that I do just that.

So today I was thinking about all of the new avenues of freelancing that I want to get into and the magazines that I want to write for and I started to feel myself, once again, making excuses for why it just wouldn’t be possible for me to do those. Three thoughts always pop in my mind when I start to feel confident enough to try something different or shoot for something that seems out of reach at the moment.

1) There are so many writers that are better then me, what if my writing isn’t good enough to compete with them.

2) What makes me qualified enough to speak about certain aspects of writing if I’ve never done it before.

3) What if they just don’t like my writing style and they say no. What if the no’s just keep coming?

Those are the things that scare me about having my own writing business and having to do this thing all on my own. But those are the things that I also promised myself I would not let stop me this year. I can’t really stop those thoughts from creeping back into my subconscious from time to time but I can figure out how to combat them with positive thinking and find a way to move past those negative thoughts so that it doesn’t become a bump in the road for me.

Putting them out there, writing them down so that they become more visible and not just a voice inside my head accentuating all of the negative, actually really does help. It helps me realize that these are fears I can deal with. I may not be the best writer in the world (I’m not really sure who could claim that title) but I am a good writer and all I can do is work on making myself better and keep on knocking on those doors until people do say yes. That’s what I’m going to do. So for anyone out there is tired of hearing no from people and who may be feeling a little defeated, just keep knocking on those doors. Someone will say yes, but only if you keep on knocking.

I have the Write 2 Be Courageous and Bold… What is your Write 2 Be?

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

Write 2 Be Magazine will be debuting on January 15^th, 2013 so please go join the magazine on twitter before it debuts on https://twitter.com/write2bemag and join the email listing for the magazine at Write2bemagazine@yahoo.com. Also please feel free to go and friend me on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310 and like my Write 2 Be Magazine fan page. Please help support my endeavor and my new journey and help me spread the word about Write 2 Be and its meaning.

NaNoWriMo Day # 2: Let the Nay-Sayers in the Crowd Fuel Your Drive

November 2, 2012 jcladyluv

So this may be the day where you have one of your so-called friends (you’ll understand why I say so-called in just a second) call you up just as you’re sitting down to write and say “so you were serious about doing that? What do you really expect to get out of this?” This is when you shoot them a look through the phone (as if they can actually see you) and say “of course I’m serious, I take my writing very seriously and what I expect to get out of this is a first draft of a book that will one day be on someone’s best-seller’s list” (sorry I’m projecting my response) and you ask them as politely as possible why they would say something so negative to you.

This is the friend that either has no ambition themselves and doesn’t understand a thing about setting goals and sticking to them, or they are simply jealous that they don’t have the same drive that you do for something that they wish they could be doing. Either way, it’s not the support you really need during the month of November as you complete your first draft. OR IS IT?

We all know that it is wonderful to have the positive people around you, supporting you, rooting for your success every step of the way. But what we may take for granted is how it is just as important to have those people who don’t believe in you and who are rooting for you to fail as a motivation as well. That in now way means that you convince yourself to listen to those nay-sayers because they are wrong for not believing in you and they are wrong to doubt you (and when you do hit the New York Times Best-Seller’s list they will really be kicking themselves) but let their discouragement be your motivation.

Let it be the fuel for you to get up early in the morning (or whatever your designated time to write is) and write those words everyday. Let it drive you, if nothing else, to prove them wrong. And when November 30^th gets here you will have the satisfaction of knowing that not only do you have a new novel in the works to edit but that you can also be satisfied that you never gave up like your non-supporters all thought you would. Keep going and forget what anyone else has to say!

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

When the Walls Have Crumbled, You Can’t Remain Underneath the Rubble (Can You?)

September 18, 2012 jcladyluv

Yesterday was the beginning of a very bad week for me. I won’t really get into the specifics but let’s just say I have never felt more like the walls are closing in on me than I do at this moment. As I thought my life couldn’t get any worse, it happened to actually get worse. My best friend was trying to keep me positive and remind me to still have hope but I have honestly never felt more hopeless than I do right now. It seems like nothing is working out the way that I wanted it to (the way I feel it should be working out) and everything that was giving me some semblance of hope is crumbling in over top of me.

But I still have to put on a smile for my daughter because no matter how much I feel that things are falling apart. I always tell her that how her day turns out has a lot to do with the way she trains her mind to think in the beginning of that day. That if you get up and have the conviction that it is going to be a positive day, then most likely it will be, and the same goes for the negative side of that coin. I found myself having to repeat that to her again last night and I found myself thinking (as I have many times before when giving advice to others) thinking that I really should learn to take my own advice to heart.

So we went skating last night and for a moment I forgot the horrible day that I had and the problems that were mounting against me. Of course I remembered when I came home and certainly it was on my mind when I woke up this morning but I tried my best to put my frame of mind in the positive column and not the negative. It helped that I managed to put some of my stress into my treadmill time this morning at the gym.

Today I can’t honestly say that I have had my hope restored and that I believe that everything is going to work out just fine. What I can say is that I was listening to my best friend Ms. L. last night when she told me to just focus on jumping into action to make everything better rather than sit around with the conviction that it’s never going to get better. I hate when she’s right but it happens so often that I am used to it by now.

That is what it means to have good supportive friends in your corner. When you are in that place where you have forgotten that the struggle is really worth your fight, it is good to have someone remind you that everything that you have been working hard towards is not for nothing. Just when you think the walls are crumbling all around you, it’s nice to have someone there who will help you to remove the rubble.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

Mood For Thought

August 7, 2012 jcladyluv

I did not wake up in the best of moods this morning. I was in a funk and to be honest I am still in one. I had hoped that the run I did on the treadmill this morning would help but it didn’t. I got some work done on my novel (thank God for that) and I went to the grocery store to shop for some decadent goodies to make me feel better.

However, as I was sitting here contemplating on the reasons for the mood that I am in I started to question myself as to why I was filling up my precious, already over extended time with thoughts of what is making me feel depressed and making me feel inadequate. Why am I giving those negative thoughts so much power? Why am I not taking this mood that I woke up with this morning and throwing myself into any piece of work that I can get my hands on in order to keep my mind focused on what is important and on what matters the most?

I mean sure a piece of pie or ice cream (or both) will make me feel better in the moment but then when they are gone the problem is still there. And so is the work that needed to be done that I just let pile up because I decided to let my mood hold me back. I do get in some really funky moods often and I always let them take over. It’s time that I start learning to take my moods and turn them into a source of productivity instead of a point of being stuck.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”

http://www.facebook.com/people/Jimmetta-Carpenter/1069480310

http://www.passionatewriterpublishing.com/thediary.htm

www.lulu.com/ladybugpress

What’s Your Motivation When the Odds Are Stacked Against You?

July 30, 2012 jcladyluv

I read a blog post the other day that asked the question ‘Is having something to prove a good enough reason to do something?’ When I read the post the blogger discussed how perhaps we should not use someone telling us that we can’t achieve something or someone’s negativity altogether to influence or motivate whether or not we in fact decide to go after what it is that we want. She stated that people pleasing was something not to get caught up in. Initially I felt that she might have a point to that statement and that people’s sheer passion for doing something should be enough to ‘just do it’ and that it shouldn’t take someone else telling us no or rejecting our passion for us to go at it full force.

But then I realized something. Isn’t that the nature of how dreams are realized, and how businesses are built, and how people are made to be successful? I mean of course you dream something and naturally you want to achieve that dream no matter what and when you start a business you hopefully are starting that business because it is something that you’ve always wanted to do. But if you listen to a lot of successful people talk about how they got there and how they accomplished their dreams and started their businesses, a lot of it had something to do with what someone told them they would never be able to do.

Think of how many singers and film stars were told no, and how many times they were told no, and how many people even told them that they were crazy to think they would ever really make it. Now think about how that just fired them up to going after that dream with even more force and more drive. Think about Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey and Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates and how many people told them they would never make it and that they would never see their dreams become a reality and how those words must have fueled the fire that was already lit underneath them.

I remember hearing an interview once about an entrepreneur going after their dream and starting their own company (can’t quite remember who at this exact moment) and when they were asked what made them go after their goal when all of the odds were stacked against them, their response was simply ‘someone told me I couldn’t have it’. It’s amazing what someone telling you NO will do for your drive and ambition to prove them wrong and get what you want in spite of all the odds stacked against you. I hate to be told NO but if I really think about it, when I do get to where I want to be in life, those No’s will be what made me so fiercely determined to prove everyone who said I couldn’t do it wrong.

Jimmetta Carpenter

Writer/Editor

The Diary: Succession of Lies (Now Available)

Writing as “Jaycee Durant”